Offenses to Avoid When Conducting Link Building Outreach

Offenses to Avoid When Conducting Link Building Outreach

Link building is one of the strategies that is used by webmasters to develop the reputation of a website on the Internet. It is a strategy where as many high quality incoming links as possible are made to direct visitors to the website. To create a reliable network that the search engine bots will recognize, the webmaster should conduct some outreach. This is an effort to convince the webmasters of other websites to put links in their pages that lead to your own site. While doing this, there is the possibility of making errors. Here are the most outrageous errors that a webmaster can make when performing link building.

Trying to reach out to other webmasters who are also doing the same thing

When you contact another webmaster who is busy trying to accomplish exactly what you are trying to do is not a good move. It makes you appear sloppy in your work. In most cases, the other webmaster is not willing to invest their time and effort to help you.

When you do this, the other SEO webmaster will immediately think that you are using an automation tool. Moreover, they will think that you are unable to check the list that you have on your own. This will definitely annoy them and thus they will not be willing to help you. In such a case, even if you contact them in future, they will not be willing to help you out. As such, ensure that you reach out to webmasters who are not busy trying to boost their websites as well.

Making an effort to reach out to people who already have the content that you are offering

When you are reaching out to a website owner, ensure that you have unique content. This is because if they already have the content that you are offering, they will not be willing to pick it up. For example, you can offer them an article that they already have. Always conduct your research before you perform outreach to the owner of a certain website. Ensure that they don’t have what you are offering.

You can perform this sort of research by taking up the keywords that you have and conducting internal searches in their website. This is the fastest way to tell if they have any similar content in their website. Once you do this, you save our own time as well as that of the webmaster. It also prevents you from sending an outreach offer and getting turned down. This is usually a big blow to your reputation as a webmaster.

Utilizing the wrong name or salutation as you perform outreach

As you make the outreach, you should utilize the proper salutation to the owner of the website where you want the links to appear. Some of the safe salutations that you can use is ‘Webmaster’, ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. You should never use a name that you have found on their webpages and assumed to be that of the webmaster.

In most cases, it is quite difficult to find out the name of the webmaster. This is because they often use a moniker in signing their websites. Another mistake that many people make while performing outreach is using an email template and changing only the name at the top. This is a recipe for disaster. This is because, by doing this, you may send an outreach email and forget to change the name at the top. An email with such an error not only does not get considered, it also indicates that you are not keen in your work. This destroys your reputation as a webmaster. As such, use the official salutations of ‘Webmaster’, ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ as you send out salutations unless you are completely sure of the webmaster’s name.

Making assumptions about the power of the recipient of the email

When you are sending an email for outreach, one of the mistakes that you can make is assuming that the person you are sending it to is a subordinate. Entering a line in the email that says that they should contact someone else to get in touch with you indicates that you have put them at a lower pedestal. This is a mistake because the person that you are emailing might actually own the website and company that you are reaching out to.

It is possible to be in a situation where you are not sure who to send the email to. In such a situation, you should send the email to the person that you believe is authorized to receive it. In the text, ensure that you indicate that if it has arrived at the wrong desk, it should be forwarded to the person who is supposed to receive it. By phrasing your email in this way, you do not step on toes even if you got the recipient wrong the first time.

Making the email too short or too long

Emails that are too short rarely communicate the message clearly. On the other hand, emails that are too long are tedious to read and often get ignored. Avoid sending emails that are so short that the recipient spends too much time wondering what you want from them. Not only are they inconclusive, they also come off as rude.

On the other hand, some outreach emails are very long. They take up to ten minutes to read and a similar period of time to understand. Thus, you should find a balance and the right length of email to send when performing outreach. Also, ensure that you indicate the purpose of the email clearly in the subject line of the email. This way, the webmaster is aware of what they are about to read and what is expected of them.

Conclusion

While performing link building for your website, outreach is very important. It puts you in partnership with other website owners and can get them on board with your efforts. It is possible to get linked with very reputable websites and increase the value of yours. As such, ensure that you avoid these mistakes when conducting link building outreach.